“It’s My Meeting!”: Involving High School Students With Significant Disabilities in the Individualized Education Program Process

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA; 2004) requires that special education teachers include transition in student individualized education plans (IEPs) in preparation for adulthood. The law also requires that, at a minimum, educators invite students with disabilities to attend their IEP meetings starting no later than age 16. Student involvement in the IEP process (i.e., contributing to the development of the IEP, planning and participating in the IEP meeting) is an essential component of effective transition planning (Kohler et al., 2016). Student involvement is also found to facilitate self-determination, communication skills, decision making, and goal development (Arndt et al., 2006; Papay & Bambara, 2014). However, students with significant disabilities are among those with the poorest transition and postschool outcomes (Butterworth & Migliore, 2015; Grigal et al., 2014). Despite student involvement policy requirements, known benefits, and general approaches to student involvement, such as person-centered planning designed to keep students at the center of the planning process (Test, 2012), students with significant disabilities are often left out of their own IEP process. This is due in large part because special education teachers feel unprepared to involve students with significant disabilities in the IEP process (Royer, 2016). This article provides strategies to meaningfully involve students with significant disabilities throughout the IEP process.